The Legend of Joel Riggins part 9: Smash Nap and Safe Haven
by Daniel Beadle - Thursday, September 20, 2007
“OH MY GOD! JOEL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Joel awakens with a start, lying face down on his bedroom floor. A Durex condom wrapper sticks to his right cheek as he lifts his head. His memory a blur, and his eyes slowly clearing, Joel’s attention is caught by a dirty sock lying a foot away from him. The otherwise white sock has a crusty, almost yellow stain by the toe. What have I done? he asks himself.
The voice that awoke Joel was clearly his mother’s, standing immediately behind him. Joel turns his head to look over his shoulder, but his attention is snared by the glow of his bare ass. He’s completely naked.
Joel snatches up a dirty T-shirt to hold in front of his package as he turns over. “Umm… I can explain…” he starts.
Suddenly, Joel’s father peeks in the room, over his wife’s shoulder. “Do you feel ridiculous?” he asks his son. “’Cause you look it.”
Minutes later, Joel is sitting on his bed wearing a pair of red boxers and a green T-shirt, rubbing his face in dumbfounded exhaustion. Memories of the previous night flicker through his head. He sees himself tossing one-dollar bills at half-naked women. He sees Bill pull out a bag of coke with the sinister promise of “Gag ‘em and tag ‘em,” a reference to doing coke with hookers before getting sexual favors and sending them on their way. He remembers a woman’s face buried in his lap in the front seat of Bill’s pickup, with Bill looking in through the window like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park.
But the money, Joel thinks. An entire afternoon of buying love from women with progressively loose morals, from flirty waitresses to dirty prostitutes. How much had he spent? Joel imagines Bill laughing as he lights a cigarette with a twenty. Did that actually happen? Joel checks his wallet, finding a single, crumbled one-dollar bill laced with cheap perfume. He checks another wallet pocket, and finds a wealth of receipts, ATM and otherwise. Twenty dollars for a round of shots here, sixty dollars for drinks there, two hundred from an ATM in downtown Providence. Another receipt for shots. And another. And another.
Joel flips open his cell phone, and scrolls through his digital phone book. There’s only one man who can help me, he thinks.
Andy Fleischmann is a good kid with long-standing ties to Milford. Born into a middle-class Protestant family, Andy takes matters of religion and conservative politics to heart. He’s a philosopher, and a man in tune with nature. Some days of his are spent entirely in the hiking trails adjacent to his home at the edge of town. Unfortunately, the most remarkable aspect of Andy is inhuman tolerance for alcohol. Like a Viking born in the wrong era, Andy drinks the hardest of liquors, and is aware of the world around him only in the brief moments between black outs. He’s a heavyset fellow, with a mop of blonde hair on his head, and a fondness for V-neck sweaters. He also wears a pair of glasses that, as a result of his chaotic lifestyle, are continually lost or broken.
Andy stirs in his bed, as his cell phone rings next to his ear. His blackout clears, and Andy answers with a tired voice. “Hello?”
“Andy, it’s Joel.”
“Riggins?”
“Yeah. I need your help.”
“What’s up, buddy?”
“I just spent over seven hundred dollars yesterday. I need to disappear... just get away from it all. I need to be somewhere where no one can find me.”
“I hear ya. I’ll get the Vodka. Meet me at Peppercorn Hill in a half hour.”
“…And that’s why I can never get behind organized religion…” says Joel, sitting in a small clearing in the woods. Andy sits cross-legged a few feet to his right, nodding and taking periodic sips from a bottle of cheap Vodka.
Joel continues, “You have all these people, getting fed their beliefs through ‘dignitaries’ and other guys with some form of ‘authority.’”
“So you don’t think that priests or ministers or whatever have anything valuable to say?”
“It’s not that it’s not valuable, it’s that it’s spoon fed. ‘You believe what we have to say, or you’re going to Hell.’ And that’s it.”
“But do you believe in God, then?”
“Absolutely. I just don’t believe in the all the structure. I think people should believe what they want to believe, and not be told what’s right and wrong.”
“I see what you’re saying, but I still think that religion serves a purpose.”
“Of course it does, guy. I’m not arguing with you on that. I’m just saying that I don’t feel comfortable believing the basic tenants of organized religion.” Joel holds out his hand, and counts his points on his fingers. “One, everyone’s a sinner. That sucks. These churches just make everyone feel bad about themselves. Two, to get to heaven, you have to live by the ways of the church. Now you have a bunch of assholes living their lives with the specific goal of getting to Heaven, and that’s just about as ridiculous as…” He searches for an analogy.
“It’s kinda like living for retirement,” Andy contributes.
“Exactly. You see what I’m getting at. See, that’s the thing about me: I say, live for the moment. Don’t be a sucker, living life on the straight and narrow, trying real hard to live up to what someone else tells you who God is. Live life in the present, and just enjoy it, god dammit.” Joel takes a swig of the Vodka.
Andy pipes up, “No one can argue that you don’t do that.”
There is a brief pause in the conversation, as the two boys soak in the atmosphere, looking at the sunrays streaming through the trees. Joel’s phone breaks the silence. He answers, and hears Bill’s gravely voice echo down the line.
“Yo! What’s up, pussy lips? You at the site, guy?”
“Nah, I told you yesterday, guy… I’m moving today, so I’m not working.”
Bill stands in the bucket of his four hundred dollar-an-hour cherry picker, pushing levers back and forth with his right hand, and holding his cell phone with his left. He’s staring out over the adjacent Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, watching a forty-year-old woman buckle up her screaming child into the back of a minivan. Bill adjusts the controls to get a good view of her cleavage.
Joel continues, “…And Lyons is helping me, so he’s not working today either.”
Bill stares deep into the woman’s cleavage, his attention waning from the phone conversation. “Lyons… I left him in charge, guy… If he’s not there, then who’s watching the site?”
Cut to: The painting site (a house in suburbia, as you might remember). The single worker who showed up to work shrugs his shoulders, and then settles down for a nap on the lawn.
Bill hangs up on Joel, and then searches for Donnie Savia’s number.
Cut to: Donnie’s room, where Donnie lies face down on his bed. His phone vibrates on his nightstand, and he picks it up. “Hello?”
“Yo! Fag! Get your shit together and get to the site!”
Donnie’s bloodshot eye glances at the clock as he considers his response. “I quit.” Donnie hangs up the phone and rolls over.
Joel checks the time on his cell phone. “Well, it’s getting to be that time. I agreed to pick up Lyons to help me move. You gonna stop by for poker tonight?”
“Maybe,” says Andy, while staring at the sky.
“Alright. If I don’t see you there, we should all be meeting at Baker’s house tomorrow night. His parents are out of town.”
“Nice. Very nice.”
“I’ll see ya, buddy.”
“I’ll be here.”
And that would by Andy’s last coherent memory for the entire weekend.
Joel awakens with a start, lying face down on his bedroom floor. A Durex condom wrapper sticks to his right cheek as he lifts his head. His memory a blur, and his eyes slowly clearing, Joel’s attention is caught by a dirty sock lying a foot away from him. The otherwise white sock has a crusty, almost yellow stain by the toe. What have I done? he asks himself.
The voice that awoke Joel was clearly his mother’s, standing immediately behind him. Joel turns his head to look over his shoulder, but his attention is snared by the glow of his bare ass. He’s completely naked.
Joel snatches up a dirty T-shirt to hold in front of his package as he turns over. “Umm… I can explain…” he starts.
Suddenly, Joel’s father peeks in the room, over his wife’s shoulder. “Do you feel ridiculous?” he asks his son. “’Cause you look it.”
* * *
Minutes later, Joel is sitting on his bed wearing a pair of red boxers and a green T-shirt, rubbing his face in dumbfounded exhaustion. Memories of the previous night flicker through his head. He sees himself tossing one-dollar bills at half-naked women. He sees Bill pull out a bag of coke with the sinister promise of “Gag ‘em and tag ‘em,” a reference to doing coke with hookers before getting sexual favors and sending them on their way. He remembers a woman’s face buried in his lap in the front seat of Bill’s pickup, with Bill looking in through the window like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park.But the money, Joel thinks. An entire afternoon of buying love from women with progressively loose morals, from flirty waitresses to dirty prostitutes. How much had he spent? Joel imagines Bill laughing as he lights a cigarette with a twenty. Did that actually happen? Joel checks his wallet, finding a single, crumbled one-dollar bill laced with cheap perfume. He checks another wallet pocket, and finds a wealth of receipts, ATM and otherwise. Twenty dollars for a round of shots here, sixty dollars for drinks there, two hundred from an ATM in downtown Providence. Another receipt for shots. And another. And another.
Joel flips open his cell phone, and scrolls through his digital phone book. There’s only one man who can help me, he thinks.
* * *
Andy Fleischmann is a good kid with long-standing ties to Milford. Born into a middle-class Protestant family, Andy takes matters of religion and conservative politics to heart. He’s a philosopher, and a man in tune with nature. Some days of his are spent entirely in the hiking trails adjacent to his home at the edge of town. Unfortunately, the most remarkable aspect of Andy is inhuman tolerance for alcohol. Like a Viking born in the wrong era, Andy drinks the hardest of liquors, and is aware of the world around him only in the brief moments between black outs. He’s a heavyset fellow, with a mop of blonde hair on his head, and a fondness for V-neck sweaters. He also wears a pair of glasses that, as a result of his chaotic lifestyle, are continually lost or broken.
Andy stirs in his bed, as his cell phone rings next to his ear. His blackout clears, and Andy answers with a tired voice. “Hello?”
“Andy, it’s Joel.”
“Riggins?”
“Yeah. I need your help.”
“What’s up, buddy?”
“I just spent over seven hundred dollars yesterday. I need to disappear... just get away from it all. I need to be somewhere where no one can find me.”
“I hear ya. I’ll get the Vodka. Meet me at Peppercorn Hill in a half hour.”
* * *
“…And that’s why I can never get behind organized religion…” says Joel, sitting in a small clearing in the woods. Andy sits cross-legged a few feet to his right, nodding and taking periodic sips from a bottle of cheap Vodka.Joel continues, “You have all these people, getting fed their beliefs through ‘dignitaries’ and other guys with some form of ‘authority.’”
“So you don’t think that priests or ministers or whatever have anything valuable to say?”
“It’s not that it’s not valuable, it’s that it’s spoon fed. ‘You believe what we have to say, or you’re going to Hell.’ And that’s it.”
“But do you believe in God, then?”
“Absolutely. I just don’t believe in the all the structure. I think people should believe what they want to believe, and not be told what’s right and wrong.”
“I see what you’re saying, but I still think that religion serves a purpose.”
“Of course it does, guy. I’m not arguing with you on that. I’m just saying that I don’t feel comfortable believing the basic tenants of organized religion.” Joel holds out his hand, and counts his points on his fingers. “One, everyone’s a sinner. That sucks. These churches just make everyone feel bad about themselves. Two, to get to heaven, you have to live by the ways of the church. Now you have a bunch of assholes living their lives with the specific goal of getting to Heaven, and that’s just about as ridiculous as…” He searches for an analogy.
“It’s kinda like living for retirement,” Andy contributes.
“Exactly. You see what I’m getting at. See, that’s the thing about me: I say, live for the moment. Don’t be a sucker, living life on the straight and narrow, trying real hard to live up to what someone else tells you who God is. Live life in the present, and just enjoy it, god dammit.” Joel takes a swig of the Vodka.
Andy pipes up, “No one can argue that you don’t do that.”
There is a brief pause in the conversation, as the two boys soak in the atmosphere, looking at the sunrays streaming through the trees. Joel’s phone breaks the silence. He answers, and hears Bill’s gravely voice echo down the line.
“Yo! What’s up, pussy lips? You at the site, guy?”
“Nah, I told you yesterday, guy… I’m moving today, so I’m not working.”
Bill stands in the bucket of his four hundred dollar-an-hour cherry picker, pushing levers back and forth with his right hand, and holding his cell phone with his left. He’s staring out over the adjacent Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, watching a forty-year-old woman buckle up her screaming child into the back of a minivan. Bill adjusts the controls to get a good view of her cleavage.
Joel continues, “…And Lyons is helping me, so he’s not working today either.”
Bill stares deep into the woman’s cleavage, his attention waning from the phone conversation. “Lyons… I left him in charge, guy… If he’s not there, then who’s watching the site?”
Cut to: The painting site (a house in suburbia, as you might remember). The single worker who showed up to work shrugs his shoulders, and then settles down for a nap on the lawn.
Bill hangs up on Joel, and then searches for Donnie Savia’s number.
Cut to: Donnie’s room, where Donnie lies face down on his bed. His phone vibrates on his nightstand, and he picks it up. “Hello?”
“Yo! Fag! Get your shit together and get to the site!”
Donnie’s bloodshot eye glances at the clock as he considers his response. “I quit.” Donnie hangs up the phone and rolls over.
* * *
Joel checks the time on his cell phone. “Well, it’s getting to be that time. I agreed to pick up Lyons to help me move. You gonna stop by for poker tonight?”
“Maybe,” says Andy, while staring at the sky.
“Alright. If I don’t see you there, we should all be meeting at Baker’s house tomorrow night. His parents are out of town.”
“Nice. Very nice.”
“I’ll see ya, buddy.”
“I’ll be here.”
And that would by Andy’s last coherent memory for the entire weekend.
NEXT: TOOLING AROUND MILFORD WITHOUT BRAKES
